The sound of leather on willow.....in Vietnam !

Hello to all,

you may know that I can track the page reads to my blogs (Google Blogspot provide all the stats). Since I started ( 19 editons ago !), the blog has had nearly 8000 page reads , and not just just from UK , but all over the world. Up to now the best read edition was 'Vietnam for Eurovision' , probably due to its title and people finding it by accident on searches for Eurovision. But my last post 'There'll be seagulls over the streets of Cambodia' had a massive viewing spike a couple of weeks ago........400 reads in one day and all from the same viewing source. How curious. Well this was NOT the Head Office of the Cambodian Birdwatchers Association. What it was , was another Brighton and Hove Albion fan stumbling across the Seagulls Bar in Phnom Penh and putting it on the club's Fan Forum ( NorthStandChat). Somebody else then found my posting, put a link up , and hey presto I had 400 page reads in 24 hours all from the same link. Isn't the internet amazing...... . I very much doubt that any of my fellow Brighton fans will ever look at my blog again though ( LOL).

Today is a pisser.....literally. I was just getting ready to take Sally out for her walk, and then looking forward to Saturday afternoon tennis, and suddenly down came the Big Rain. My advice to the UK Water Boards is just to move some of their resevoirs to Vietnam, we'll fill 'em up in no time, and we'll give you a good price.

So to my headline..........only a number of readers will realise that this is a Cricket analogy. So what's the story? Well in 2012 Hanoi won the bid to host the 2019 Asian Games. According to Vietweek ( an English language newspaper here),  South Korea spent 1.62Bn USD and Qatar 2.8Bn USD in hosting these games in the past. Vietnam have committed 300m, and the newspaper goes on to say that Dubai, Taipei,Kuala Lulpur, New Delhi and Hong Kong all withdrew from the race ( mainly for financial reasons). Vietnam are now considering a 'withdrawal plan' .......I am guessing because of the cost, which I further guess will be in excess of 300m USD. There are 36 sports competed, of which 28 are Olympic and 8 are popular Asian sports. Of the 28, facilities would have to be built/adapted/improved for such sports as American Football, Baseball and.........Cricket. Yes Cricket in Vietnam. I shall be glued to my TV in 2019 looking for the quizzical expressions in the crowd ( if there is one) when the Vietnamese try to understand Cricket. However there will be some interesting variants of 'How'zat'!!

Two photos to finish.......'Selfies' seem to be flavour of the month at present. So here's a kind of a 'selfie' of Sally who somehow wormed her way onto the bed yesterday. She looks very contented.

And finally, just to prove that I did not come to Hanoi for the weather, here's the view from my office yesterday. Hanoi is not the Riviera of SE Asia.



Cheers all ....till next time

Kevin